Server-side rendering means the final markup is generated on the server before reaching the browser, rather than being assembled by JavaScript in the visitor’s browser. The browser receives finished markup.
Category
Bloomreach Engagement, rendering
Also known as
SSR; server-side render
The contrast is client-side rendering, where the server sends a mostly empty page and JavaScript builds the content in the browser after load. Server-side rendering matters for anything that has to be complete and correct the moment it arrives: email, where there is no JavaScript to run; personalization that must not flicker or arrive late; and content that needs to be present for search indexing. The trade is that the work happens before delivery, so the values are fixed at render time rather than reactive to what the visitor does next.
In practice
In Bloomreach Engagement, Jinja renders server-side and its result is baked into the delivered code, while the weblayer’s JavaScript runs afterward in the browser. Keeping that order clear prevents a common class of bugs, such as unquoted Jinja output landing in a JavaScript statement, where a value meant to be a string arrives as a bare JavaScript reference.